Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1359517
28 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2021 Shaughnessy: What advice would you offer to someone just getting into simulation who already knows how to design a board? Westerhoff: Personally, I try to listen to every- thing that Eric Bogatin and Scott McMorrow say, for different reasons. Eric is a phenomenal educator, and he has a gi for breaking com- plex topics down and communicating them. Every time I listen to Eric, even on a topic I think I know well, I learn something new. Scott has been state of the art for the 20 years I've known him and shows no signs of slowing down. Every time I talk to Scott, I learn what issues are coming at me in the future, whether it will be six months or two years from now. It's important that users take the time to understand what they're doing and why. It's not just about tools and features; a simulator is just a tool—it won't make design decisions for you any more than a hammer will build a house for you. You need to understand how to use a simulator to identify and debug design problems, or you're going to get stuck. If you're just getting started, don't "shoot for the moon" in terms of accuracy. Accuracy isn't just about having the right tools—it's about having the expertise, computer resources, and time to use them. Your goal isn't to find 100% of your design issues, it's to take most of the issues off the table so that you can leverage dedicated SI expertise more effectively. Shaughnessy: at's good. Westerhoff: ere are two ways you can waste money. e first way is overdesign—you waste money in manufacturing. You keep wasting money for as long as the design is in produc- tion. e second way to waste money is ana- lytical overkill—you waste money in engineer- ing. If you're running a more detailed analysis than is needed to establish that the design will work, you're wasting time, and time is money. Shaughnessy: Do you think we'll see more simulation and analysis tools designed for new users? Westerhoff: I hope so, but I think what we really need is a better bridge between the experts and intermittent users. Chances are, both groups are going to run analysis on the same designs. If the experts can develop useful "best prac- tice" design guidelines for the organization, then the system designers and layout designers can use automated rule checking to ensure the issues are off the table before detailed model- ing and simulation begins. I shouldn't have to build a 3M EM model of a board and run analysis just to find out that I have components without decoupling capacitors nearby. Similarly, any analysis performed by system designers and layout designers should be able to feed directly into the tools the SI experts use. Simulation is a GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) process, and there's lot of work involved to make sure component types and values are tagged properly. e system designers and lay- out designers are oen closer to a particular design than the experts are, they're in a better position to verify that data is correct, and that helps make better use of limited SI expertise. ere's a natural cycle that occurs with SI technology—the issues that are state of the art today become commonplace over time. at means that over time, you can and should be able to take analytical processes that were originally limited to experts, refine and auto- mate them, and then make them accessible to a wider audience. e question then becomes, You need to understand how to use a simulator to identify and debug design problems, or you're going to get stuck.